Police Lights Effect Help

Steven Bogda

Steven Bogda

Well-known member
Hi,
I am about to start shooting a short scene involving a crime scene. It is going to be outdoors, and I really want to have some sort of red and blue lights flashing somewhere near the scene so it looks like there are cop cars behind the camera.

Anyone know a way to get this kind of effect without a cop car?

Thanks
 
I think you can buy rotating lights at places like K-mart in red and blue pretty cheaply. Maybe try ebay also.
 
Here where I live there is a company that sells those blue and red flashing lights to police, fire and ambulance companies. When I need similar lights for a night shot I was doing, they were willing to loan me some. You might check around and see if there's a simlar company where you are.

If not, contact your local police, fire or paramedic folks and ask if someone would be willing to bring a police car, fire truck or ambulance out to your shoot and run the lights. If the folks in your town aren't willing, try small towns in the surrounding area. It's worked for me in the past.

Good luck!
 
thanks for the responses.
i think i will try to contact the police in this town to see if they have a extra car i can play with
 
The old way of doing a police light "gag" is to put two 650s on stands, gel one blue and one red. Have a grip pan them back and forth, focus and position to taste.

Simple and sellable.

An updated way is to rent a high powered strobe and gel that red and have a grip turn it on and off while on fast pulse.
 
They sell strobes now for cheap just like the rotating old ones you are talking about. Any party store has them.
 
I had a similar post a few weeks ago, try ebay, I found some great stuff on there, purchased something similar, good luck.
 
A slight modification to the "gag" that "J" recommended that i used on a recent film. Take a 3x6' board and cut two square holes in it, putting a red gel over one hole and a blue one over the other. Then have the grip pan the 1K back and forth behind the board. Works like a charm. We even matched this to an earlier shot where we "borrowed" the light bar from a cop car (a friendly cop could let us have the whole car!).
 
Here's the deal:

it's not a simple answer. really depends on many factors such as ambient light levels and how much punch you need, how wide is the shot, how far away your source needs to be and so forth.

But generally speaking, I'd take two 575 HMIs facing the opposite direction, one with blue gel and one with red, both hitting a stanf that has a multi mirror rig spinning on top of it.
this is for a more realistic effect. I know that is not in budget range of most folks here

another option is to have 2 tunsten 2ks, one double blued and one red each set on a flickerbox. but even this might be beyond some folks budget.

even cheaper, the above but without flicker box, using a PA with solid flags alternating which light he covers and uncovers.

Always avoid anything that involves someone holding a light or the light moving if at all possible.
 
The way I've done it before (just as a more subtle fill type effect) is to bounce a light (whatever size you want) into a mounted piece of beadboard. I actually took two pieces of beadboard and tape them together so that the shiny sides were out, then one side with blue gel on top, the other side with red gel. I mounted the red/blue reflector on a stand so that it could be spun around and had a baby open face bounced into it.
 
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